“Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire.”

Let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.

When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.

Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing.

I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.

And were your back as broad as heaven, and your purse full of gold, and did your compassion reach from here to hell itself, there is nothing you can do.

In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest, there is a leaf that falls.

Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.

It is my belief that the only power which can resist the power of fear is the power of love.

Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation.

Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools

For who can stop the heart from breaking?

because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.

The tragedy is that things are not mended again.

I envision someday a great, peaceful South Africa in which the world will take pride, a nation in which each of many different groups will be making its own creative contribution.

When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, Where are your wounds? and if I say I haven’t any, he will say, Was there nothing to fight for?

Then some unknown rebellion brewed in you, doing harm to you, though how I do not understand.

I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.

I read everything I could find: books and online. Sometimes bigger revelations came to me through finer details or something that you wouldn’t pick up just by surface reading.